But think about what happened: Some unnamed official was allowed to speak with complete authority on behalf of “the White House.”

That’s a mistake. To quote NYU media critic Jay Rosen, “There is no White House, really. Not in the sense that the term has been traditionally used. There’s just Trump and people who work in the building.”

And those of us who would like to ask the original source some questions can’t. We can only hope Johnson does.

So I emailed her this morning. The Post’s communications office got right back to me and said she wasn’t going to respond, but here’s what I asked her:

Do you think that source was telling you the truth as (s)he knew it at the time?

If so, will you go back to the source and say: What happened?

How do you think things would be different if you had used the source’s name?

Do you think the campaign would have had a harder time “reversing” a policy announced by someone by name?

Would that source be more likely (under more pressure) to explain why what (s)he said is no longer operative, if his/her name were associated with it?

I’m never a fan of granting government officials anonymity, unless 1) they’re exposing something of great public importance and 2) they might lose their job if their name was associated with it.

Actually, I’ll take either 1 or 2. Or at least a bit of 1 or 2. I get it, we live in the real world.

But granting anonymity to people who work for Trump – particularly when they are announcing some sort of forward-looking policy or personnel decision — is a completely different ballgame. Consider:

Trump is so fickle, vain and impulsive that there’s no way for anyone but him to speak with any authority. (Corollary: Even when Trump says something, he is quite possibly lying and/or about to change his mind.)

If anonymous sources are announcing a sound, reasonable, and forthright policy (as above), it gives them a positive headline – but when Trump (almost inevitably) violates that policy, there is no accountability.

So many Trump plans attributed to anonymous officials are so unprecedentedly vile that by not attributing them to specific people, journalists are simply letting Trump test public reaction – and reduce the shock element when and if the proposal is formally announced – without any accountability.

As Paul Farhi of the Washington Post and Michael M. Grynbaum of the New York Times noted in somewhat swooning profiles of Swan over the weekend, he is in fact responsible for more, bigger scoops than I gave him credit for. Per Farhi:

But the other thing I left out was that Swan’s sourcing is almost always anonymous. I’m not saying it’s easy to get Trump officials to talk to you, but it sure is easier if you essentially promise they’ll never be held accountable for what they tell you.

So: Sources tell Swan something, and he reports what they say, anonymously. He does so regardless of motive. He doesn’t fact-check. He doesn’t have time to get a response.

As Farhi finally notes, in the penultimate paragraph of his Swan story, “his stories sometimes read like news flashes or blurbs, shorn of context, depth or larger connections.”

One of the reasons I launched this website was because I think it’s so important that people see each of Trump’s incremental actions in their proper, alarming context. Nothing he says or does – and nothing his “White House” says he’s going to do — can be taken on face value. Virtually every action is part of a racist and corrupt assault on pluralism, truth, and what I (still) consider core American values.

In the early years of internet news, a mantra in many newsrooms was that getting it right is more important than getting it first.

In the age of Trump, I would argue that putting it in context is more important than getting it first. In fact, in the greater scheme of things, getting it first really doesn’t matter at all.